The racy memoirs of the Irish braggart and rogue who flourished, if that's the right word, in the late 1700s, are delightfully imagined by one of the great Victorian writers. Even more than Dickens, his contemporary, Thackeray can still beguile the modern reader, as is well testified in his first important novel.

First published in 1844, this is Thackeray's earliest substantial work of fiction and perhaps his most original.